Alexander Vaughn Bybee April 28, 2012 English 102 Self Defense VS Murder The fiend in him must

kill and Jamie was the only thing living he saw. The pistol and the rifle rang out almost togetherTea Cake crumpled.. Some would say there is a fine line between murder and self-defense. The legal definition of self-defense is, Use of force is justified when a person reasonably believes that it is necessary for the defense of oneself or another against the immediate use of unlawful force. However, a person must use no more force than appears reasonably necessary in the circumstances. Force likely to cause death or great bodily harm is justified in self-defense only if a person reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm. (1 CTN) By this definition, a person has the right to protect themselves by lethal force if he or she is at risk of losing their own life. When a person kills another human being the courts have to figure out if the actually killing was self-defense or murder. The legal definition of murder is The killing of one human being by another. Homicide is a general term and may refer to a noncriminal act as well as the criminal act of murder. Some homicides are considered justifiable, such as the killing of a person to prevent the commission of a serious felony or to aid a representative of the law. (1CTN) A criminal homicide is, one that

is not regarded by the applicable criminal code as justifiable or excusable. (3 CTN) With these definitions one would have to consider what is and what is not self-defense or murder. We will first take a look at what constitutes self-defense and what are the consequences of committing murder in this way. When someone kills another human being in self-defense he or she is saying that there was no other choice but to kill because if they did not kill they would have died themselves. According to Britannica Encyclopedia self-defense is, justification for inflicting serious harm on another person on the ground that the harm was inflicted as a means of protecting oneself. They go on to say, The doctrines of self-defense are qualified by the requirements of retreat. An offending party subjected to a felonious assault by another may stand his ground and kill when the conditions necessary to lawful self-defense are otherwise satisfied. (1 CTN) The laws regarding killing in self-dense show that killing another human being would have to be the only other option other than being killed themselves. Some people may try to use self-defense as a defense in the justice system but being found innocent due to self-defense does not always turn out in the accusers favor. As in the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God Janie chose to kill Tea Cake because of the threat she was under from him. Tea Cake was bitten by a rabid dog and had contracted rabies. Rabies is a deadly disease that causes a human being to go crazy and make unreasonable decisions. According to Britannica, the definition of rabies is, acute, ordinarily fatal, viral disease of the central nervous system that is usually spread among domestic dogs, wild carnivorous animals by a bite. All warm blooded animals, including humans, are susceptible to rabies infection. It goes on to say, The mental state of a person infected with rabies varies from maniacal excitement to dull apathy the term rabies means madness. (5 CTN) So it seems that Tea Cake went crazy and had decided to kill his significant

other Jamie. He chased her with a pistol. Jamie ran from Tea Cake and attempted to stop his attack but she was unsuccessful. She had no other choice but to shoot him with a rifle which Tea Cake had taught her to use. She chose to kill him in order to preserve her own life. Jamies situation could be interpreted as self-defense by some and murder by others. Some may even say that she was morally wrong for killing him while others would say if she had not killed him she definitely would have lost her own life, especially because Tea Cake was not in his right mind nor would he ever be because rabies has an ultimate prognosis of death. Jamie in this book had to go through the court system just like any other person would. The courts must determine whether the actual act of killing was self-defense or murder. Our court systems say that when two people are in an altercation, he is required to make every possible effort to retreat. If he initiated the quarrel by launching a felonious assault, he must wholly withdraw from the altercation and clearly communicate to the other party a purpose to desist from further attack before he can claim the right of self-defense. (1 CTN) This means that a person cannot just shoot someone without giving ample warning that he or she is going to do so. In the case of Jamie and Tea Cake self-defense was obvious because Tea Cake lost his mind and the ability to make coherent decisions regarding his life or the life of Jamie. Other cases are not so obvious, as is the case with a killing that involves the protection of a third person. If someone is walking down the street and sees another person being attacked it would seem fair to say that justifiable force could be used to save that person from death. Britannica says, The rules relating to the use of deadly force to save a third person from death or serious injury bear an obvious relation to the doctrines of self-defense. In cases in which the party defended is a member of the killers household to whom he owes special obligations of

protection, homicide is generally excused if the killer reasonably believed the deceases to be an aggressor and the killing to be necessary to save the third persons life. (1 CTN) There have been instances that there was a preplanned killing using this scenario. For this circumstance it would be important for the courts to sort out all the details of the killing to make sure the act was not murder and if it was that the criminal would be brought to justice. It may be difficult for the courts to prove murder but it may be just as difficult for a person to prove it was self-defense. If a person was convicted of murder and it was actually self-defense the person could be put in jail for a long time for protecting themselves from being murdered. But if the person was found innocent under the defense of self-preservation a murderer could go free. The statistics in the United States during 2006 to 2010 show that there has been an average increase of 4.1% of private citizens killing a felon during the commission of a felony. (2 CTN) If someone is being robbed and another person witnesses that felony, he or she has the right to kill the felon in order to stop the felony from happening. The United States court systems treat every killing case the same. The person who did the killing must be tried in order to prove self-defense or murder. If someone is going to use self-defense as a reason to commit murder he or she may want to think twice about using that defense because the court system, hopefully, will find out if the act was actually murder. Murder is, a homicide committed intentionally or as a result of the commission of another serious offense. The crime of manslaughter includes killings that are the result of the violent emotional outburst, as might result from provocation. Penalties for murder may include, capital punishment or life imprisonment, whereas the penalty for manslaughter is usually a maximum number of years in confinement. (3 CTN) It seems that this definition shows that murder is a willful act done when a person is in an emotional state of mind. Some may ponder

the question, if someone commits murder is he really in his right mind? Some psychologists may say that anyone who murders another human being is not in their right mind while others say that even if a person commits murder he could absolutely know exactly what he is doing. Murder, it may seem, is a malicious act of violence that takes a calculating mind. How could a person who must use a calculating mind be out of his mind? Murder in the United States happens often and is very different than self-defense. Self-defense requires a persons life to be in danger while murder is a selfish act that causes harm on another person with malicious intentions. Self-dense means that a person warns her attacker before killing him. Murder is done without any regard to the other person. There are different degrees of murder. Degrees of homicides are distinguished from one another by the mental state or level of intent on the part of the person responsible for the death.Murder usually involves a planned and intentional killing. (6 CTN) When someone kills in self-defense the only intention is to be free from harm. Someone who commits a killing in self-defense will not wish the attacker to be dead but knows there is no other choice if he or she wants to stay alive or free from harm. Murder on the other hand is intentional and may be a play for power over others. Self-preservation is not at stake when someone commits murder. One who commits murder may not have any regard for humanity or human life. The person who commits murder may not even value their own life. Murderers may or may not care about the consequences of their actions therefore never putting any thought into what might happen once they are caught as the punishment for murder can be severe from life in prison to capital punishment which means the murderer is put to death. Murder and self-defense are acts of violence on another human being. They both afflict harm on someone else and they both end the life of another. Killing someone, whether in selfdefense or murder, is an act of violence. Both murder and self-defense killings could be

considered intentional but self-defense killings are not generally done if one party is not in fear of their life. Killing someone is an emotional act for both a murderer or a person acting in selfdefense but the emotional state of the murderer is very much different from the other. The person saving themselves is only thinking of saving their own life while the murderer is in an emotional state of mind many times fueled by rage. Rage and fear are two entirely different emotions and have very different outcomes when a person is in the heat of either of them. According to the Dictionary.com fear is, a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. The same dictionary describes rage as, angry fury; violent anger, a fit of violent anger, fury or violence, to act or speak with fury; to show or feel violent anger, to move, dash or surge variously. Fear creates an emotional state so much that the person who is operating in fear must make a move to save them. Some may say that fear is a self-preservation state of mind. If the person does not act on that fear and do whatever deems necessary to avoid what is causing it the person may die. The fear becomes so strong especially when someone is being attacked. Sometimes the only alternative to suffering in fear is to kill the fear giver. Rage is entirely different because rage is what causes a person to commit a crime against someone else. The person becomes consumed by rage just like the person who becomes consumed by fear but rage has a different outcome. A person who is consumed by rage may not have any regard for the harm they have caused on another person. While a person who is consumed by fear may have much remorse for committing a killing. At the time of the killing they would have known there was no other choice but once everything sinks into the mind about what happened, the person may blame themselves for the act. A person enraged is only thinking

of how to release that rage and remorse may or may not play a role once the act of killing, through rage, has been committed. Is there a fine line between murder and self-defense? The answer to this question would have to be a yes especially when comparing murder and self-defense as a violent act against another human being. But when you take a look more closely the differences vary more greatly than the similarities. The only similarities are that someone is killed and it is considered a violent act on another. The difference is the emotional state of the person committing the killing. A murderer is consumed by rage and a person acting in self-defense is consumed by fear. Just like Jamie and Tea Cup were in the book, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Tea Cup was enraged even though it was not of his own doing and Jamie was consumed by fear because of the rage that was in Tea Cup. She was scared for her own life and she knew there was nothing that could be done but to kill him because of the pistol he held to her. His intention was to kill her so she had no choice but to intentionally kill him.